Bill Young

Charles William Young (December 16, 1930 – October 18, 2013) was an American politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 2013. A Republican from Florida, Young served as chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations from 1999 to 2005. He was the longest-serving Republican member of Congress at the time of his death.\n', ' Young was born in Harmarville, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, in 1930. He had Irish, German, and Swiss ancestry. He grew up in a Pennsylvania coal town in a shotgun shack. His father abandoned the family and a flood washed away their home at age 6. An uncle had a hunting camp in Florida, so the family moved there when he was 16. Young dropped out of St. Petersburg High School to support his ill mother, Wilma M. (Hulings) Young, and was wounded in a hunting accident. He married Marian Ford on August 20, 1949, when he was an 18-year-old high school dropout and she was 17, entering her senior year at St. Petersburg High School. When he was 18, he joined the Army National Guard and served from 1948 to 1957. After finishing his service, he applied for a job as an insurance salesman and ultimately ran an insurance agency.\n', ' In 1960 Young was elected to the Florida Senate, where he served from 1961 to 1970, and was minority leader in that chamber from 1966 to 1970. Until 1963, Young was the only Republican in Florida\'s upper chamber.\n', '